Successful Zoom writing events

We, (NCWN-West) are continuing to hold Writers' Night Out through June on Zoom. 

This event was begun about ten years ago by Karen Holmes, an outstanding poet who lives in Atlanta but also has a home in Towns County, Georgia on Lake Chatuge. 

Karen Paul Holmes

We met in various places during those ten years and just before the pandemic struck, we were planning to meet in a new venue near the lake. But once COVID-19 invaded our world, we could not hold face-to-face meetings, so I learned how to use Zoom and suggested to Karen that we hold WNO on Zoom.

I found it to be fun and exciting to meet new writers from distant places. 

Not many of our local writers felt comfortable using Zoom and some still have trouble signing in, but we always had a good number of participants at our once-a-month online event. We used the opportunity to invite guests from distant cities and states and found some who said they deeply appreciated our holding this meeting where they could be a part of it. Some regulars are Abbie Taylor, a fellow blogger, who lives in Wyoming, and Jill Jennings, a highly published writer, who lives in Florida. Karen invited poets who published with her publisher and they came from many different places. 

Although Writers' Night Out will be ending in June 2023, for several reasons, I will miss those evenings together with writers I will not likely see in person. I hope they will continue to visit us at Mountain Wordsmiths, a Zoom meeting facilitated by Carroll S. Taylor. That group meets once a month at 10:30 AM Eastern time. In May, Carroll will host the writer Bill Lightle, author of 

Race & Politics in the American South: A Personal History

Bill grew up in Albany, Georgia where I lived half my life. We both went to the same schools. I read this book and think he will be a very interesting person to listen to on May 25. I agree with his insight into race and politics in the deep south, especially in southwest Georgia. 

To attend this online program, you will have to be invited by Carroll Taylor. Contact me and I will put you in touch so you can receive a link. 

Carroll S. Taylor

I am trying to use a different desktop computer most of the time and the Internet still doesn't recognize it so I am having problems with WiFi and internet service. I am convinced that Internet Technology is trying to make us older folk completely crazy. At times I want to throw up my hands and say, "OK. I give up. I will not touch a keyboard again."

But I am a writer and I must continue to write.  I hope to see you soon on Zoom if not in person.

Writers are enjoying community in far west Netwest region

One thing writers usually know or realize is that we all need a community of writers. 

Whether online or in person, we crave the company of and conversation with others who write. For most of my life, I wrote alone with no other writers with whom I could share my work. I didn't know any other writer when I lived in south Georgia. For years I wrote personal essays, some poetry and short stories which no one ever saw. I had no one except family to read my work. I believe family is of no help with deciding if my writing is good or not. My poetry was criticized because it did not rhyme. No one in my family group enjoyed free verse poetry. My true stories were criticized because I didn't include my siblings in the narration. 

Nancy Simpson, Program Coordinator and co-founder of NCWN-West

But, when I moved to North Carolina in 1995, and joined the NC Writers' Network- West, I automatically became a part of a fantastic writing community. Nancy Simpson, poet and teacher, founder and Program Coordinator of NCWN-West, encouraged me, advised me, and supported me in writing and in taking leadership roles. The others in the poetry groups and prose group did the same. I took classes at the John C. Campbell Folk School with excellent writers who were instructors. I began publishing my poetry the year after I arrived in the mountains of North Carolina.

Some have said that writers don't need NCWN-West now because we have the Internet, but they are wrong. Here in the mountains of Appalachia, we need the community of writers who live near us. We have always been a very generous group that wants to help each other improve and get published. 

We have a monthly poetry group that meets in Young Harris, Georgia. We also have a monthly poetry group that meets in Hayesville, NC. 

Coffee with the Poets and Writers meets monthly at the library in Hayesville, NC. All groups are open to the public. 

When the pandemic hit, we had to stop meeting in person for two years. We moved to Zoom to hold meetings online. Our monthly Writers' Night Out has become a Zoom event with writers from distant states joining us. 

Mountain Wordsmiths meets monthly, on Zoom, at 10:30 AM and has become popular with our members from all nine NC counties and north Georgia counties. 

I am happy we were able to keep our community going through Zoom meetings even though some of our members have not been that comfortable going online. It was of utmost importance to keep our members safe during the worst of COVID-19. Now that we can get vaccinated and practice social distancing and wearing masks, it is safer to meet in person. 

I think our writing community has survived the pandemic and it will continue to be a stable program for writers in the remote mountain areas of North Carolina and north Georgia. 

Want to write poetry? Take this workshop with poet and professor, Catherine Carter

 Saturday, September 11^th, 1:30-3:30 PM

Poetry Workshop with poet and professor, Catherine Carter

Fee is only $25 and beginners, as well as more experienced poets, are welcome.

Carter will teach a two-hour workshop for NCWN-West via Zoom from 1:30-3:30 on Saturday, September 11^th.  Wherever you live, if you can get Zoom on your computer, you can participate in this class.

The workshop focuses on using the addition of internal slant rhyme to poems to echo off existing keywords and increase poems’ music, along with close attention to the impact of lines’ end words. 

For the first hour, poets will look at published poems and the ways in which their sounds enhance their content. 

For the second hour, participants will work on enhancing the sounds in a short poem of their own and, if they like, share the results with the group. 

Participants are asked to have on hand a HARD COPY of a draft of a short poem of their own, less than one page long, for this activity.

To register: Send a check or money order for $25 made to NCWN-West, %Glenda Beall, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904. We need to receive the fee by September 6, and we will then send you the link to the class. 

Why Do You Write?

Bobbie Christmas, editor and writer, published this article on LinkedIn. 

Why Do You Write? is a good question to ask yourself. Bobbie answers this question and tells us what we should do according to who we write for, who we want to read our words, where we hope to publish, and what we want to do if we publish a book.

Students gather around the table for a class in my studio before COVID

I have scheduled my next writing class for September 27 - November 1, Mondays 2:30 - 4:30 PM.

The classes will be on Zoom as my last several classes have been. The Institute for Continuing Learning will sponsor the class. Visit  www.iclyhc.org to see when registration begins for this class. 

Check the calendar for all 2021 fall classes. No matter where you live if you can get Internet coverage and can connect with Zoom.com, you are welcome to join locals in my region of the Appalachian Mountains in my class. 

Writers' Night Out on Zoom June 11

Friday evening, June 11,7:00 PM, I will host Writers' Night Out on Zoom from my home.

We are excited to have as our featured guest, P.C. Zick, author of over thirty books. P.C. is a woman writer who lives in Tallahassee, Florida, but during the summer she lives in Murphy, NC, not far from my home in Hayesville, NC.

I look forward to our conversation that night and to P.C. reading from some of her publications.

She writes contemporary fiction, romance novels, and nonfiction books. I found that her book, The Author's Journey, a road map for writers from draft to published book, a necessary part of my library, and I refer to it often as well as use it when teaching my writing students.

If you are a regular reader of this blog and would like to join us Friday evening on Zoom, contact me by email and I can send you the link to the meeting.

P.C. Zick is a woman whose name is Pat, and I look forward to learning why she writes using her initials. 

If you want to know more about this author, check out her website: www.pczick.com  

Sorry if you missed the dialogue class on Zoom today. Carol Crawford taught her first Zoom workshop and her students, including me, had an informative two hours with an editor who knows her stuff.

We hope to have Carol teach again in a few months. As we hunker down this winter, would you like to experience an excellent writing class with a well published writer, editor and poet? Let me know what you are interested in learning more about.

If you are an instructor of poetry or prose with a resume', please email and let's get to know each other. 

We are not offering classes or workshops in Writers Circle around the Table, the actual studio, because of COVID and some other problems, but we can continue bringing writers the best writing teachers by using Zoom online. 

Thanks to Carol Crawford and those who attended today.

Dr. Steven Woolfe on No Labels

Dr. Steven Woolf is guest on No Labels for a 3:00 PM Citizen Call on Zoom.
You can see Dr. Woolf and those who question him. One of the things I learned was that since the 1980s, the life span in the United States has fallen below that of other life expectancy in other developed countries.

He speaks of the ripple effect of this virus. Many more people will die from chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Most importantly, he says we have not invested in public health. Our CDC and State Health Departments were not prepared although we were warned of such a crisis many years ago.
He speaks of the many children likely to suffer from PTSD in years to come. Our mental health will be affected deeply by this pandemic.

I have said for years that we have a broken health care system, but Dr. Woolfe says it is fragmented with lots of different entities involved. He says, and I agree, we need a National Health Care system which we don't have today. I think we can all see how this is necessary from the debacle we have had with this COVID -19

Watch this informative program. You will likely have to click on the arrow to bring up the speaker.

https://zoom.us/rec/play/uZx-Jemprj83ToCV5gSDAPEtW47oJ6ys0XNM_vFeyk-2USUGZ1T1Y-AbM7ayN2YaG0RSp_CPQgVWnCpV?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=glxj1J3lRuKreIu_p8GeXg.1586293198759.88366a1e86563a4b35762172d987a909&_x_zm_rhtaid=942&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c831315c-82c3-40e7-b814-cfdcb70d81ff